In the marketing of retail products, e.g., at supermarkets, merchandisers often promote sales with discount coupons, often referred to as “cents off” coupons, that are redeemed at the point of sale by the customer. The coupons have a human readable section that contains, e.g., the name of the product, the amount of the discount, expiration date, and any other terms and conditions for use. The coupons also have a bar code section readable by a bar code reader with similar information that can be scanned and processed by a store's checkout software to perform tasks such as: verify the product is actually being purchased, automatically process the discount, tally the resulting discounted cost on the customer's bill, and provide a record, by manufacturer, of the discounts processed by the store. The store in effect advances the amount of the coupon discount to the customer on behalf of the manufacturer, and the manufacturer is obligated to reimburse the store for the advances, plus a handling fee.
Once redeemed by the store, it is customary for the coupons to be forwarded in bulk to a clearing house or redemption house that automatically scans the coupon bar codes, totals the individual coupons and arranges for appropriate transfers of funds from coupon-issuing manufacturers to coupon-redeeming stores.
A problem has arisen in that as coupon values have increased, customers or retailers (and organized crime) have found it lucrative to fraudulently copy legitimate coupons and redeem the fraudulent copies. Such copies are typically made with color photocopiers, or with scanned images printed on a color printer. Because of the quality of modern reproduction devices, it often is difficult to distinguish such copies from originals. Manufacturers have grounds to object when counterfeit coupons are redeemed, either because their marketing plans are intended to provide a limited incentive through discounts, or in a limited geographical area, or because the redeemed coupons do not represent actual sales.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide a coupon that is resistant to fraudulent copying and redemption. In the past, anti-counterfeiting measures have been devised for checks, currency or securities that rely on holographic images, or the use of watermarked “security paper”, on diffraction gratings, or on other techniques to thwart copying. However, because merchandise coupons have relatively little value, the cost of these known techniques has proven too great for them to be employed, and often they limit the graphic advertising designs that manufacturers would like to put on their coupons. Moreover, the coupons need to be accurately scanned by bar code readers which use optical devices similar to those found on copiers and bar code reading can be interfered with by some anti-copying techniques. There remains a need to provide a coupon structure and coupon-making method that allows copy-resistant coupons to be made simply and economically, without detracting from the appearance of the coupons, and at the same time permitting bar code scanning to take place without interference.